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KATARXIS N°2

On Architecture and Urbanism

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New Judiciary City in Luxembourg
 
(Model of Final Project )
 
by Rob Krier
 

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Elevation of New Judiciary City, Luxembourg
 
by Rob Krier
 
 

"If we consider the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant, 'Act only according to the maxim of a kind that you may want its principle to become a universal law," the architect may ask himself the question:
 
'What would be the consequences if the maxim on which my project is based became a general principle of architecture and urbanism?'
 
Build therefore in such a way that you and those who are dear to you will use your buildings, look at them, live in them, work in them, spend their holidays in them and grow old in them with pleasure."
 
Léon Krier
 
"Architecture: Choice and Fate"
 
Andreas Papadakis Publisher, Windsor 1998)
 
 

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New City Hall, Rosemary Beach, Florida
 
by Scott Merrill and Georg Pastor
 
(Photo by S. Merrill and G. Pastor)

New Architecture and New Urbanism

Of The Necessary Harmonious Integration of  Architectural Scales
in the Moral and Civic, Material and Practical, Artistical and Cultural,
Reconstruction of Cities and Landscapes

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Reconstruction of Stadtschloss Site in Berlin
Perspectival View from Lindenallee
 
by Rob Krier

KATARXIS 02/1 is dedicated to the integration of architecture and urbanism in a variety of scales and relationships. It shows contemporary projects and buildings  acknowledging the originality of traditional cultures, their sensitivity to man and community, to natural and cultivated environments, and which continue and enrich a historical culture of architecture and city-building within modern practice and modern thinking.
 
One of the primordial objectives of this edition of KATARXIS consists in the reassessment of architecture within the realm of  dwelling from the scale of the house to that of the city. The issue of New Urbanism is presented in this context as an essential alternative, and as a coherent and realistic proposal to address the reconstruction of suburbs and town centers, the development of new neighbourhoods  and particularly to rebuild again the civic ideals and the highly sophisticated sense of civility and culture of traditional cities.
 

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The Reconstruction of Sidon, Libanon (1997)
 
The Prince Of Wales's Urban Design Task Force
 
by Samir Younés

Katarxis is an international web-magazine dedicated exclusively to the study, the practice and the promotion of traditional architecture and urbanism.
 
 Katarxis considers New Traditional Architecture and Urbanism to be  philosophically and politically essential, and culturally and artistically, socially and economically  supportive of highly operational and reliable choices to build better places and buildings in the contemporary world.
 
Katarxis documents and reflects upon contemporary theory and practice of traditional architecture and urbanism. 
 
Katarxis promotes artistical, architectural and urbanistic works and projects as well as educational and academic efforts contributing to a comprehensive project of a New Contemporary Humanism and to the reconstruction of a modern building culture supporting excellence, conviviality, citizenship in a context of continuity, identity and permanence.  

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Aerial View of New Waterfront Quarter, Jupiter, Florida
 
by Chael & Cooper Architects & Dover Kohl, Architects and Planners &
Gentile-O'Mahoney Landscape Architects

Redemption Song

by Charles Brewer

Oh please dont't build the cul-de-sac.
Yes, let your streets connect.
 
If you don't, you will have congestion
And your life it will be a wreck.
 
And let your streets be narrow.
In the neighborhood cars could slow.
 
The people they will be happy,
And the cars they won't even know.
 
Won't you help me sing This song of building Places we can love?
 
Redemption Song.
 
Oh don't build the gated community.
Your society it will destroy.
 
Strive for income diversity.
It will bring you lots of joy.
 
Oh please don't segregate uses.
The pod is a bad thing.
 
Remember to mix your housing types,
And your neighborhood it will sing.
 
Won't you help me sing This song of building Places we can love?
 
Redemption Song.
 
Oh don't be afraid of density.
It will bring your cities life.
 
Remember it's not the people you don't like
It's just the things they drive.
 
Don't make me look at garage doors.
You can put them in the rear.
 
Make the street inviting.
The benefits are so clear.
 
Won't you help me sing This song of building Places we can love?
 
Redemption Song.
 

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Lenexa Town Center, Tower
 
by Robert Kramer and Michael B. Morrissey

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Lenexa Town Center
 
by Robert Kramer and Michael B. Morrissey

 
Please contact KATARXIS for comments and submissions at the email
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